ØNIZΛL
About Antonin Onizal

I live between worlds.

Between the dancefloor and the temple. Between the chaos of a rave and the stillness of a sunrise ceremony. Between the singing circle on the beach and the screen at the desk. Between building things and letting them go.

Antonin · portrait

My name is Antonin Cohen. Different worlds, different masks. I don't attach to any of them. Through meditation, plant medicine, ceremony, dancing, singing, playing music... I kept arriving at the same thing. Underneath every identity and every experience, there is only one thing. Call it source, consciousness, love, the divine. The names don't matter. What matters is feeling it yourself. ØNIZΛL is the container I built to bring that experience into a room of moving bodies. One is all. This is my story of sound, movement, and what happens when bodies move together in rhythm.

— The music —

Twenty-plus years of dancing, mixing, listening.

Early days

France

Born in Marseille. Classical piano as a kid. Reggae and hip-hop through my teens. At 14, electronic music found me through Daft Punk and David Guetta.

At 17, I started DJing on vinyl decks at a friend's house. Learning to mix. My vibe was the early days of minimal techno — Paul Kalkbrenner, Ellen Allien, Ricardo Villalobos, Sven Väth. The wider French scene: Laurent Garnier, Miss Kittin and The Hacker, Oxia, Vitalic.

On the side, some raw hard techno free parties, while helping run festivals and throwing pool parties.

2010

USA

In 2010 I moved to the US just as dubstep was breaking. Bought my first Traktor controller. Switched from vinyl to digital, learned harmonic mixing. Started playing out.

Bassnectar, Skrillex, Flux Pavilion, Rusko, Borgore, Excision. Big rooms, bigger bass.

2012

London

In 2012, London. I built a 2-kilowatt sound system and ran it through weekly squat parties.

Jungle and drum and bass. Congo Natty, Benny Page, Top Cat, Serial Killaz, Decline. Liquid DnB through Netsky, London Elektricity, High Contrast, Camo & Krooked.

I lived in a warehouse with seventeen other artists. Free party and squat culture. The point was the music and the tribe, not the door money.

Psytrance first entered my world here.

2017

Spain

Moved to Spain in 2017. Went deep into Latin culture — salsa, bachata. Reggaeton and trap with Bad Bunny and J Balvin. Salsa classics from Willy Colón, Joe Arroyo, Marc Anthony.

Spain's festival scene was my psytrance scene. Astrix, Bliss, Merkaba, Ace Ventura, Infected Mushroom, Vini Vici, Ajja. Nothing better than a psytrance festival in a magical forest.

Now

Travelling · 2019→

Since 2019 I've been travelling through conscious communities. Mazunte in Mexico. Portugal. The Canary Islands. Koh Phangan in Thailand. Dharamkot and Goa in India. Bali in Indonesia.

Plant medicines and sacred ritual are part of my practice now.

Downtempo through Mose and Sam Garrett. World bass through CloZee and Savej. My sound has gotten deeper and more atmospheric.

I

The inner work — alongside the music, always.

Silence

Buddhist meditation retreats

Silent, sitting. Learning what the mind does when nothing is distracting it. What thoughts are when I stop identifying with them. What silence feels like after a few days of it.

Training

Transpersonal guide

Trained to hold space for people in altered states, in ceremony and therapy contexts. Less about what you say, more about what you're willing to stay with. Whatever comes up, the container holds it.

Medicine

Plant medicine ceremonies

Ayahuasca in the Amazon. Mushrooms in Huautla de Jiménez in Mexico. Cacao and cannabis circles across Europe. I work with most of the plants — each one teaching something different.

I guide psychedelic therapy ceremonies. The work is staying present while someone's self dissolves. It all points at the same thing. We aren't separate. Not from each other. Not from source. Separation is the illusion we live inside, and every deep experience is a step closer to remembering that we are all one.

II

When ecstatic dance found me

I'd always danced. For twenty years before I had a name for it.

When I found ecstatic dance, I recognised the room. It was the space where I could show up with everything I already was. The music. The ceremony knowledge. The inner work. The transpersonal training. The dance itself. All of it welcome in one place, expressing at once.

That's where the Onizal Dance started.

III

What I'm doing now

I travel to play. Sound journeys at festivals, retreats, and private gatherings across Latin America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Long, carefully-shaped arcs of music designed to move bodies through specific states.

i
Onizal Dances
I organise them — the 4-hour experience that brings ritual, breath, inner dance, the tribe, and freeform dancing together.
ii
Plant ceremonies
I guide ceremonies when the container calls for it. Psychedelic therapy, plant medicine, deep transpersonal work. The practice is staying steady while someone's self dissolves. Fifteen years of sitting with my own material is what makes it possible to sit with theirs.
iii
Music & writing
I make music. I sing. I write. Sound journeys, medicine music, long-form essays on ceremony and movement. The studio, the dance floor, and the page are the same room for me.
iv
Side quests
Adventures between mountains and ocean. Kitesurfing somewhere windy. Snowboarding through powder. Long rides, remote coasts, cold water. The body is the first teacher, and these are the places it keeps speaking to me.
v
AI & Tech
I also work in tech. I build things. Being fully in the modern world keeps the spiritual work honest. I have no intention of becoming a full-time mystic in a cave.

What I'm building is Onizal as an open-source movement. I want more people running Onizal Dances in their own communities, cities, festivals. The more of us doing this, the more the practice returns to the culture.

— ø —

Let's connect.

Four ways to reach me.

i

Book me

For a festival, retreat, or private event.

For events→
ii

Study Onizal

Bring it to your own space, your own community.

For facilitators→
iii

Listen

Recent sets. Long, shaped sound journeys.

Music→
iv

Say hi

Questions, ideas, collaborations, or anything else.

Contact→
Stay close

Stay close
to Onizal.

New mixes, upcoming dances, writing from the road.